17 4 NOTES ON GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION Check List 17 (4): 1075–1080 https://doi.org/10.15560/17.4.1075 On the occurrence of Persian Gulf Sea Snake, Hydrophis lapemoides (Gray, 1849) (Reptilia, Squamata, Elapidae, Hydrophiinae), along the coast of Bangladesh Mohammad Abdul Wahed Chowdhury1, 2, Md. Rafiqul Islam1, 2, Abdul Auawal1, Harij Uddin2, Najmul Hasan2, Ibrahim Khalil Al Haidar1, 3* 1 Venom Research Centre, Chittagong Medical College, Chattogram 4203, Bangladesh • MAWC:
[email protected] https://orcid. org/0000-0003-2893-0026 • MRI:
[email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5645-8454 • AA:
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[email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1011-0882 2 Department of Zoology, University of Chittagong, Chattogram 4331, Bangladesh • HU:
[email protected] • NH: najmulcu1998@gmail. com 3 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Chittagong, Chattogram 4331, Bangladesh •
[email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1011-0882 * Corresponding author Abstract We provide the first evidence of the presence of the Persian Gulf Sea Snake,Hydrophis lapemoides (Gray, 1849), along the coast of Bangladesh. This species was assumed to exist in there, but neither specimens nor confirmed observa- tions exist until now. We document here the first confirmed record of H. lapemoides based on a freshly collected and taxonomically verified specimen from coastal Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi specimen had the following diagnostic characters: 55 black bands, a dorsal scale composition of 35:51:43, 342 ventrals, one pre-ocular, two post-oculars, 2+3 temporals, 8 supralabials (II largest and contact prefrontals; III–IV contact orbit) and 8 infralabials (I–IV contact genials).